How often do you do pedal maintenance???

[Biketouringhobo]

How often do you do pedal maintenance???

do you grease your pedals???
do you clean your pedals???


Last time I did pedal maintenance was in 2013
on my Sun-Ringle zuzu pedals

[RussSeaton]

Never.  I use Shimano SPD and Shimano SPD-SL pedals.  Shimano brand.  They never ever need maintenance.  I did break an axle back in spring 2007.  Had to ride about 7 miles back to the start location in that instance.  Other than that, never had an issue with Shimano brand pedals.

[canalligators]

Common knowledge is that good brand pedals last a lot longer than off brand.  Example: Shimano SPDs last a lot longer than the mail-order-house unbranded.  A friend had some of the knockoffs that had a terminal failure at ~4000 miles.

But to answer your question, I rebuilt my SPDs at ~20K miles.  Found no problems, the bearings and bearing surfaces looked real good.

[misterflask]

The idea that pedals never need maintenance is attractive in justifying my maintenance schedule of every couple years at best.  Shimano SPDs are sealed pretty well (the M324s anyway), so water and dirt intrusion is minimal but does occur.  After the seals are shot, I'll keep them on a commuter, but buy another set for the tourer.

Tearing down Shimano pedals is not for the faint of heart.  The bearing balls are tiny (3/32" I think) and there are a pile of them (like a 100).  Worse yet, there are a different number of balls for each end and they are the devil to get to stay in place on reassembly.  There is no slotted washer between locknuts so I had to make a special concentric socket wrench to lock down the locknuts.  Park makes a tool for the purpose, but lacking one it would be the devil to get the locknuts cinched down with the correct bearing play.

So, with that said, Russ's ride to destruction advice is pretty good.

[canalligators]

I wouldn't argue with ride-to-destruction.  The SPDs were indeed a bear to service, and my vintage needed a tool to open them up, a special ring-shaped tool.  If your pedal is designed to allow it, you might just partially open it and force some new grease in, maybe every few years.

[BrianW]

SunTour XC Pro old-school pedals (running four sets of them) = never, so far. These have grease ports, but I've never used that function. I guess the build quality is why these pedals go for $100+ on Ebay in decent condition.

SR Low Fat Pro Comp MTP-129 old-school pedals (four sets of these as well) = very occasionally I'll take them apart and regrease the bearings when they start feeling stiff. An easy and fast service with only a 10mm socket and 15mm pedal wrench needed.